Sweet Gum Leaf

A Sweet Gum tree has survived the drought with some effort. Much as I tend to dislike these messy trees near my yard, my heart goes out to all the valliant trees that struggled through a summer and fall that left the area 17 inches short in normal and needed rainfall.

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7 Responses to “Sweet Gum Leaf”

It sounds as though you’re having it really dry this year. In Scotland we often complain about the wet weather; I don’t think, as a nation, that we fully appreciate how good we have it. I’ll be wishing you a wetter, rainier 2008!

Thanks, because we will be in some serious water restrictions by next summer. Our big area river, the Catawba, has islands in it that were never there before. The channel has narrowed to a shallow slew.
My father was an avid genealogist,. He was so proud to be of Scottish ancestry. He told a tale about the first of his line, a lad named Daniel Melvin, setting foot on American soil at the age of 12 after his ship was waylaid by Edward Teach, AKA Black Beard. It was 1710 and he and a couple of men, Masons as it turned out, jumped overboard and swam to the dunes of the North Carolina shore. By showing some Masonic signal of some kind, they flagged down a passing Mason on horse back galloping down the beach…….happenstance, of course. They were taken in by the Colonial Samaritan and thus began our line in North Carolina. Of course, eastern North Carolina was heavily settled by Highland Scots and I have been told they remained loyal to the crown during the revolution. Young Daniel, who is only six generations removed from my father, supposedly hailed from the Isle of Sky but nothing is known about his family. I always wanted to take Dad to Scotland and the Isle of Sky before he died but I never accomplished it.

The isle of Skye is a very beautiful place. My husband lived there a little while before we met, and we’ve been back a few times over the years. My parents actually went there a couple of months ago, and Dad took lots of photos. If you want to see them, click here and then scan right on the photo stream. Obviously it’s not the same as being there, but at least you get to see some lovely images of it.

What great comments coming from all of you. You are all so much better at photography then I am and have better stuff to photograph. I agree about feeling some sort of empathy for plants. My Dad couldn’t stand to see them suffer and grieved over the loss of a favorite specimen as much as if it had been in the animal kingdom. Thank you all.

Would the person telling the story of Daniel Melvin, Blackbeard and the Masons please contact me? He is related to me through my mother’s maternal line, and this is a story I grew up with. I would love to know if you have more details or places I could further research the story as I am entering the point of parenting in which family stories become a regular part of life. Thank you.